(1902-1967)
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
In looking at this poem we must first turn to the following quote: “Nobody ever cried in my grandmother’s stories. They worked, or schemed, or fought. But no crying. When my grandmother died, I didn’t cry, either. Something about my grandmother’s stories taught me the uselessness of crying about anything.” – Langston Hughes
What does the river symbolize in this poem? Is it a way of alluding to the millions of tears without naming them as such? Think about the use of the word “I” in this poem and what it does to your overall reading? How would the poem sound of “they” or “we” was used in its place?
Hughes creates a geographical landscape through his mention of the Euphrates (Southwest Asia), Congo and Nile (Africa) and Mississippi (America), as if he is attempting to connect the hemispheres and thus recreate the journey of African American (which is exactly what the poem strives to do in some ways). The poem, like a river, is fluid, in constant motion. We must keep in mind that Hughes wrote this poem on a train while crossing the Mississippi, and the theme of motion is an important one. How does blood connect to the overall imagery of the river in this poem? In choosing ‘rivers’ as his main symbolic theme, what is the poet able to accomplish?
Think about the title of the poem- “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”- Why “The Negro,” what does this formulation help emphasize a general connectivity between African Americans?
‘The Weary Blues”
One word- jazz. This is not just a poem that has a beat, this is a poem that is SO influenced by jazz that it has literally become jazz. This poem is a sound-scape, you cannot read it silently, it demands to be read out loud. Blues and Jazz often acted as a form of criticism during the Harlem Renaissance, a way in which musicians could disguise their the complaints and protests through sound. This ‘disguised criticism’ or ‘disguised communication’ reminds us of the early slave songs which were created so that the slaves could manage to communicate to one another without the knowledge of their masters.
This poem contains both standard English and the vernacular (as mentioned in lecture) and it may be interesting to see what happens to the poem when you take the vernacular out. Read the poem without the jazz song… how does the poem change? What is lost? Now read JUST the singer’s verses… what happens?
Look at the last line of the singer’s verse (“And I wish that I had died”)and the last line of the poem(“he slept like a rock or a man that’s dead”) what do you notice? How does this poem function as an act of criticism or protest? Is it?
“The Same”
This poem is about exploitation, of both nature and Human nature. This was written during Hughes’s socialist phase and we can clearly read the socialist element into it. This is a political protest poem and it speaks of a general (un-racialized) exploitation of the working class. How did you all read this poem? How do the lists (“dollars..” etc) function in the poem?
“Negro”
Think about this poem in relation to “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” What are some similarities/differences? Think a little about the following: every line in this poem is in the past tense EXCEPT: “I am and Negro” and “They still lynch me in Mississippi.” What do you think Hughes is trying to accomplish in using those two lines? How does the poem subtly protest against the then present discriminatory violence enacted upon African Americans?
“I, Too”
Think about how “I, too” relates to segregation… look closely at the comma dividing the “I” from the too, a simple mark of punctuation which becomes a line of division, one that Hughes tries to focus on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CUKyVrhPgM
Think a little about empowerment and protest and how poetry can function as a means of revolt against the oppressive norm. How did you read this poem? What stood out and why?
Read Full Post »